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Monte Carlo Sept 11 - Sept 16

I typed this with just my stream of consciousness and didn't really proofread it. Sorry.

Wednesday, September 11
Longest day of work ever. Luckily, I didn’t have much on the agenda so it was stress free. Left the office about 30 minutes early and met my Dad back at my apartment so he could drive me to the airport and take my car to have some overdue maintenance work done while I was away. Got to ATL airport around 7:30 for the 10:00 flight. Didn’t really want to be there that early, but Dad was ready to get on the road. Flew Airtran with a 24-hour advance upgrade to Business Class. Still one of the best values in air travel, in my opinion. Small 30 minute delay because the sewage hadn’t been drained and apparently getting someone that late took a while. Whatever. Smooth flight except for the 3 minutes I was in the bathroom…splashage. No big deal.

Took a cab to Monte Carlo and was there quickly for about $15. At that point it’s about 12:30 local. Or 3:30 back home. Kinda feeling it. Check in. No $20 trick. Booked third party with credit card points. 5th floor near elevator with a view of the taxi driveway. Didn’t care. Mayweather fight in town and I haven’t been in two years. I’d have been happy with a tent.

Unpack a little and try to decide whether I want to sleep or gamble. Gamble it is. $50 on black tradition to start trip. Loss. Head to poker room and jump into the 1\2 no limit game. Buy in for $200. Get up to about $350 off an Ace high flush and some smaller hands. Should have gone to bed then, but had a little one on one thing going with another player. He ended up getting the better of it and I lost everything. Bed time. It’s about 4AM. My buddy lands at 11AM so I figure I don’t want to push it much more having been up 24 hours and needing to roll with him when he arrives. ZZZ…down $250 for the trip!

Thursday, September 12
Wake up feeling pretty good considering I am not the sort that can survive on 4 hours of sleep. Get a shower and head to MGM because somehow in my first two trips I didn’t even set foot in the place. Take some pictures of the Lion and Hakkasan sign and a Mayweather poster. Kinda cool, dunno, seemed rather ordinary, but I’m not much of an explorer and wandered to a craps table for my first ever live craps session.

Bought in for $300 playing $10 on the pass line with max odds and one come bet at a time. Colored up at $750 about 30 minutes later thinking craps is the best game ever and head back to Monte Carlo to meet my buddy who calls saying he’s in a cab. Meet him, say what up and drop his stuff in the room, etc. He had eaten at the airport. I had a MyVegas reward that I had purchased for the Bellagio lunch buffet that could only be used on Thursday given the days we’d be there. Sent him off to the Aria poker room and off to Bellagio I go. Up $200 for the trip!

Solid lunch buffet. Can’t really remember what I ate. Rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, some kinda ravioli and turkey sliders sounds about right. The turkey sliders are amazing. Easily the best part of the meal for me. Text my buddy saying I’m heading back to the Aria poker room to play with him. Decide to catch the Bellagio fountains before heading back. Stand around for 30 minutes with no show then figure out it doesn’t start til later in the afternoon. Idiot.

Decide to stop by the Aria sports book and place a couple bets on the Thursday football games before catching up with my buddy. Pats -11 @$55 and TCU -3.5 @$20. Both ended up being losers. Up $125 for the trip…

Aria poker room is very, very nice. Unfortunately, the game was incredibly boring. I think it was just my table. I’ve never seen more checking and lack of action in my life. I think I lost $100 out of pure boredom the entire session. Think Buddy won about $400. Two Asian gentlemen almost got in a fight because one was staring at the other trying to get a read during his action. The other got offended by the use of the F word and they both threatened each other to the point of being asked to leave. One was allowed to stay and the one that was left came back to the rail and yelled at the other like 3 times. Was rather funny. Maybe you had to be there. 4 or 5 hour session for me. 7ish for him considering the time while I was at Bellagio. Still up $25

Decided I had enough of the poker action and my buddy had enough of the drinks. We were at different tables but by the time I got over to him, he’s basically blackout. How am I going to keep up with this kid for five days? He’s been here 7 hours. First timer… He’s the sort that can’t put together a sentence when he’s had too much.

Get him a water and have him watch me play craps while he tries to sober up. He decides about five mins into the game that he wants to follow my bets even though he doesn’t know anything about craps. Or his own name at this point. I lose my $500 without hitting a single win with the same bet levels as before. Easy come, easy go. Down $475 for the trip!

Decide it’s in his best interest to get a nap. Plus I’m starting to feel my lack of sleep. Lay down about 7PM. I wake up about 10PM and get a shower. Check with him to see if he’s down for the count. Shocker. He is. First timer…

Get dressed, head for an evening walk in search of food. Figured it’s as good of time as any to try Burger Brasserie at Paris. Got a table for one, probably should have sat at the bar. It was 30 minutes before closing, but the service was slooow. The clam chowder was good. Burger was decent. Just took forever. Was gonna get a shake but the kitchen had already closed. Fair enough, I knew it was a late dinner and am sure it’s not the normal representation of the joint. I’ll eat there again next trip at an earlier time perhaps.

Off to Bellagio for another Craps session. Buy in for $200, lose it fast. Rebuy $200, Lose it fast. This game is starting to suck! Down $875 for the trip!

Head back to Monte Carlo and hit the safe for $500 more. Take it down and put $100 on black. Lose. This trip is starting to suck…down $975…

Back to the poker room. Lose $125 in about 3 hours. Wondering if I should have just stayed home. Not really, but yeah. Down $1,100 through 1.5 days with 3.5 to go. Lovely.

Get back to room and buddy is still passed out. It’s about 4AM. Great. He’ll be up at 8AM if he follows his normal form.

Friday, September 13
Sure enough my buddy is up at 8AM and ready to go! Manage to talk him into another hour of sportscenter then I somehow drag myself together and shower and hit the strip.

Decided to do breakfast at PBR Rockbar at Planet Hollywood. Had some kinda egg and tater tot platter and beer. Can’t remember the name exactly. Country platter maybe? It was too much food but it was delicious.

Wandered around Planet Hollywood for a bit and decide that we want to eat at BurGR before going to watch college football games the next day.

Decide to cross over to Cosmopolitan to do the $100 loss rebate mainly because I was gunshy on any table games at that point. Got booed by the union on the way in. They weren’t too riled up yet. Got our cards and scoped out some machines. I settled on a Top Dollar (?) $5 machine 2 credits per spin. 10 spins hit nothing at all. Of course. Down $1200… Buddy was playing some $1 slot. Decides to joke around that he’s gonna steal my jackpot and plays the machine I had been on. Third spin. Wins $500. Prick. Taunts me the whole way back to the counter to reload my $100 free play. Ran it through a dollar machine and got $80 back. Call it down $1100! On the right track…well, sort of…

Walk around the strip for about 2 more hours drinking and taking in the sights. Pretty relaxing and great weather for September.

Decide to head back to base camp for the 2PM poker tournament. Cheap $40 buy in. Additional $20 (?) at some point for additional chips. Something like 20 players. Started out hot. Dominated it. Turned into a shove fest as expected. Final four decided to chop the ~$900 prize pool. I took first for $400. Buddy took second for like $150 split the same as the other two guys. Down $700 now and heading the right way!

Buddy is done and wants to sleep again. I catch about 2 hours nap and then leave him to sleep. Head to Bellagio and Caesar’s to compare lines for the morning CFB games. Decided to bet at Bellagio. Took Georgia Tech -9 at Duke for $330 and Louisville -14.5 at Kentucky for $110. Tipped the guy $10 and got 3 drink tickets for Saturday. Decide to head back to Monte Carlo and sleep before I do something dumb like lose more at craps.

Saturday, September 14
Slept in a decent bit today. Up about 9:30 AM to make it to BurGR for lunch. Buddy has figured out that maybe he needs to pace himself a little bit on the booze, lol. Brilliant.

Get to BurGR about 10:40. Maybe fifth group in line. Little late opening. Get a table and order and watch the Louisville game while eating. Had the American Burger and added mushrooms. It was great. The ketchups that came with the fries were excellent. Also had the Shake #4 which is the Oreo one. Absolutely wonderful. It was supposed to be to go but we ended up sitting there through the end of the Louisville game. Of course they miss the cover by the .5. Annoying. Run to the Planet Hollywood sports book to put another $110 on GT -9. Also grabbed Texas A&M +9.5 for $110 mainly to tick off my buddy who took Bama while I was sleeping that morning. Also put $55 on Penn State -5 vs Central Florida.

Time to head to Bellagio to watch the 12:30 GT and Bama games which we had the main interest in. I am a GT alum and Buddy is an SEC guy whose sister attends Bama. Ended up sitting next to an Iowa guy.

Halftime comes and I’m feeling good enough about GT to take the halftime wager as well for another $110. Have $550 to win $500 total on this game now. Could use the cover! We end up throwing a TD pass with a few minutes left to cover! Johnny Football is doing his thing and covers the +9.5 but doesn’t win. Things are finally going my way even though I lost the Penn State bet and an Iowa halftime bet. But both of those were $55 bets.

Not bad for my first sports gambling. I’m hooked. Down $100 if my count is right.

Stop by Cosmo to do my swipes that I couldn’t do the day before since I did the $100 rebate. Got a BOGO Wicked Spoon buffet that we ended up using Sunday night.

Played a break even 3 hour poker session at Planet Hollywood and lose $100 playing Blackjack at Monte Carlo before bed. Put another $50 on black…third time is the charm, right? Lost. Down $250 for the trip.

Off to Wicked Spoon for the dinner buffet. Sort of weird selection, but very, very good. Mac and Cheese bar…got Mac and Cheese with Shrimp and Lobster. Amazing. Crab Legs. BBQ Shrimp and Grits. Goat Cheese Pizza. Food coma.

Wander around for a couple more hours getting the last taste of the Vegas strip for the night before we fly out in the morning.

Buddy hits the bed. I hit the craps table. Obviously. This time I’ve decided to slow my strategy a little. Only place come bets when the roller is hot. Place the 6 or the 8 when the opposite is the point. Fun table for about 3 hours. Much longer than my other sessions. Ended up turning $400 into $600. Up $250 for the trip purely on gambling. Overall cash purchases (taxi, tips, a few drinks, etc) ended up bringing me home with about $400 less cash than I came with. I’ll take it. Bed time.

Monday, September 16
Check out. No resort fees or anything owed. Not sure if they were comped or covered by my third party credit card point booking. Don’t care. Cab to airport and send Buddy off to his gate and I go to mine. Realize I’ve left my boarding pass on the table outside security. Fantastic. No hassle. TSA found it and gave it back. Airtran business class back. Flight is delayed about 10 minutes because they have to reload ice or something. Ok… Flight is delayed another 40 minutes because “we are waiting on connecting passengers whose flight has not yet landed.” WTF is that. Whatever. Not mad. Not happy. Smooth flight back. Land and get called rude name by some idiot because I didn’t let some girl off before me who had a connecting flight. Pretty sure the 10 seconds didn’t matter and based upon hearing her speech to the whole front section, she has either already missed her flight or they will be waiting like they did for the people in Vegas. My bladder was about to explode. Back to real life ☹